Short (short) story day
Self-proclaimed short story month , post number 26. Flash fiction (or short short fiction, as it’s sometimes called) is a tough genre. You have to deliver a punch in a few hundred words, and many times the urge for that punch makes the story indistinguishable from a joke. Besides, many good literary devices need some elbowroom, and, well, flash fiction is all about not having that kind of space. Every word that goes in displaces a handful. Some stories flitter and pass away silently by the curb. Some stories become surreal, as to make you feel tsk-tsked for not having gotten it. Some stories deliver. As part of this short story month, I decided to make a small sampler of noteworthy flash fiction. I picked from a self-constrained version of flash fiction: the 500-word pieces from the magazine Quick Fiction , already 15 print numbers old and still going. I chose four pieces that are available online: Claudia Smith’s “Groove ,” Anthony Tognazzini’s “Westminster March ,” Rebecca ...